Friday Night Lights

"Watching Rise feels like watching its promising high school characters take to the stage and try with all their might to bare their souls and inspire the masses," says Caroline Framke. "It’s unabashedly earnest, sporadically moving, and, when it falters, incredibly frustrating." The biggest problem, she says is that Josh Radnor's "supposedly inspiration teacher" character is a "patronizing nightmare." She adds that he "is a one-stop shop of condescension and petulance, and the show doesn’t realize it until way too late in the season."

The three-month strike that lasted from November 5, 2007 through February 12, 2008 resulted in David Letterman and Conan O'Brien growing strike beards and the cancelation of the Golden Globes. The strike also unintentionally benefitted shows like Breaking Bad, The Big Bang Theory, Friday Night Lights and 30 Rock.

Josh Radnor plays a straight male teacher, even though his NBC series is based on Michael Sokolove’s book Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town, and the Magic of Theater, about a closeted gay teacher. As Hanh Nguyen reports, Rise showrunner Jason Katims “explained he changed this aspect of his main character to be able to connect with the story, but that he didn’t want to ‘shy away from issues of sexuality.’ He pointed out that Rise will still have LGBT elements, particularly focusing on its young characters — including a trans character and another character who is grappling with his sexuality.” ALSO: How Katims' Friday Night Lights influenced Rise.

The CW series doesn’t need murder to be a great mystery, says Kaitlin Thomas. “What the first half of this season revealed — or perhaps it would be more accurate to say doubled down on given the overarching narrative of the show's first season — is that Riverdale hasn't quite learned to balance a well-plotted murder mystery with intriguing, well-rounded narratives for its individual characters,” she says. “And honestly, it shouldn't have to try to be that show; Riverdale does not need a dead body to be successful.”